1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a peripheral apparatus connected to a network, such as a printer, a scanner, a facsimile machine, a copier and a multifunction peripheral (MFP), and to a computer and a network system which manage such apparatus.
2. Related Background Art
Conventionally, there have been developed job management methods for image processing apparatus that obtain and manage many pieces of job information. For appropriate job management (job account), it is required to obtain information on a job performed in a peripheral apparatus. A conventional method for obtaining job information is as follows. That is, a spooler in a client computer stores data received from a driver and sequentially sends the data to a transmission section in the client computer. The transmission section in the client computer receives print data from the spooler and, if a printer is ready for operation, transmits job data to the device in accordance with a job transfer scheme implemented in the device. Well-known job data transfer schemes are the LPD protocol prescribed in RFC 1179 and Printer Job Language prescribed by the Hewlett-Packard Company in the United States. With Printer Job Language, a port monitor can obtain information including the number of pages concerning a completed job through two-way communication with the device. Of course, a closed proprietary job management method of a printer supplier may be used.
On the other hand, there has been devised a system that allows job information to be transmitted from a peripheral apparatus to a client computer in accordance with the job management method described above, thereby managing a job name or job ID.
In addition, there has been developed a technique of merging, for display, a job in a print server with job information in a host computer based on a job ID generated in a client in a printing system.
However, if the job information is obtained from one of the client which issues a job and the printing apparatus when the client and the printing apparatus obtain different job information, there arises a problem in that job information cannot be totally grasped.
For example, from the job information obtained in accordance with a job management method of the client computer, the document name managed in the client computer can be obtained, while the number of pages of sheets to be ejected cannot be obtained. On the other hand, from the job information obtained in accordance with a job management method of the printing apparatus, the number of pages of sheets to be ejected can be correctly obtained, while information including the document name cannot be obtained in many cases. In such cases, if the document name is essential and needs to be obtained from the job information, the job management method of the client computer has to be adopted. Then, it becomes impossible to obtain correctly the number of pages of sheets to be ejected.
In addition, an old document name, which is job identification information that can be supported by the client, cannot be supported by the printer because of the limit of the number of characters of the document name. Therefore, there is a problem in that, if the old document name is used as a key, the job log cannot be correctly managed.